"We did nothing wrong!""We have all this evidence that says you did and you've been found guilty"". . . I said we did nothing wrong, I didn't say we did nothing illegal. We wanted more money off people buying books, there is nothing wrong about that"

Okay, so here's the thing that rubs me: A monopoly generally fixes prices high. If the end result is you raise prices in competing with a monopoly, you're doing something wrong. This is one of the reasons Steam/Origin is such a mess. Any complaints one might have about Steam are at least partially nullified by the further anti-consumer practices of EA. Similarly, if your prices are going up 50%, it's probably not because you're out to break a monopoly.

Also, Amazon didn't have a monopoly. Sony at least had a robust market going on. I weighed the two heavily before I threw down with the Kindle, and I mostly did so because I can more imagine Sony going out of the ebook business than Amazon.

I want to be published, for the record. Those prices actually kind of scare me as both a consumer and a would-be creator.

Apple has created a market where a lot of ebooks I've looked for are more expensive than the print version.

Ohlookit'sMatty:"We did nothing wrong!""We have all this evidence that says you did and you've been found guilty"". . . I said we did nothing wrong, I didn't say we did nothing illegal. We wanted more money off people buying books, there is nothing wrong about that"

-M

Pretty much the standard. Especially if your fan base is one such that even that PR is unnecessary.

Zachary Amaranth:Okay, so here's the thing that rubs me: A monopoly generally fixes prices high. If the end result is you raise prices in competing with a monopoly, you're doing something wrong. This is one of the reasons Steam/Origin is such a mess. Any complaints one might have about Steam are at least partially nullified by the further anti-consumer practices of EA. Similarly, if your prices are going up 50%, it's probably not because you're out to break a monopoly.

I'll no go break the monopoly of the paperclip industry - I'll make my own device for holding paper together and I'll sell it for, like 100 bucks. That'll show them!

Then we can convince other manufacturers of paper clips to threaten to pull their products off Amazon if they don't meet our exorbitant price standards! I bet we could get Wal-Mart to back that. Box stores seem to be in trouble.

...The other thing that bugs me about this, which I should have mentioned, is that Amazon was reported to have shitty terms for independent authors. Apple, the consumer champions the claim to be, jumped in and...

....Offered worse terms with more restrictions. I'm told both have improved, but....

[quote="Zachary Amaranth" post="6.821582.19853412"]Okay, so here's the thing that rubs me: A monopoly generally fixes prices high. If the end result is you raise prices in competing with a monopoly, you're doing something wrong. This is one of the reasons Steam/Origin is such a mess. Any complaints one might have about Steam are at least partially nullified by the further anti-consumer practices of EA. Similarly, if your prices are going up 50%, it's probably not because you're out to break a monopoly.

Also, Amazon didn't have a monopoly. Sony at least had a robust market going on. I weighed the two heavily before I threw down with the Kindle, and I mostly did so because I can more imagine Sony going out of the ebook business than Amazon.

I want to be published, for the record. Those prices actually kind of scare me as both a consumer and a would-be creator.

Apple has created a market where a lot of ebooks I've looked for are more expensive than the print version./quote]

What irritates me about this situation is that it is an attempt to form a cartel, rather than break a monopoly. The publishers are well aware that they have a problem; ebooks have just about slayed the mega bookstores that had evicerated in turn the mom and pops. You smell blood in the water, you strike, but the moves to form this dinosaur squad under apple strikes me the wrong way and I don't like it.

I'm not sure what amazons self publication policies are, or the real potential for self publication in today's market. Intuition tells me that getting more per book is good, and feelings tell me publishers probably aren't great for the little guy, but I'm not in that business.

I'm not going to deny that I am a fanatic Apple user. Normally, I am quite defensive when I see people make negative statements and assertions against Apple (mostly because it almost always turns into reason to lob ad hominem attacks against those of us who use Apple products. If people just said they hate Apple and left it at that, I wouldn't care, but the frequent subsequent ad hominem attacks are what generally bother me the most); however, in this particular case, there is no defending Apple because they were, in my opinion, just clearly in the wrong (in fact, I was quite very much against their policy concerning e-books when I first learned of it). All they had to do was remove that one single clause in their policy that essentially dictated the price of e-books on other store-front, and this would not have been an issue.

I understand that Apple was trying to use the agency model to attract publishers; after all, without books, the iBookstore would have been immediately doomed to failure because it would have had little to nothing to sell. However, trying to force the entirety of the market to the same price such to artificially make the iBookstore appear more advantageous is a bad business practice, in my opinion, and Apple deserves whatever heat and flack it takes for this. There are likely better ways to compete with Amazon than collusion.

At the same time, I don't want to see the iBookstore disappear as a result of all this because it is a competitor to Amazon. The reasoning is the same that one would not want to see any company be the singularly most dominant, by an overwhelming percentage, service or product provider in any market/industry. Right now, Amazon has a decidedly dominant position in e-books, and for good reason; they have the largest selection, decent pricing, and reasonably easy purchasing. Apple would have to bring to the table something of additional value-added over Amazon in order to continue to compete, not by trying to strong-arm the market to its own will.

That's right Apple, keep wasting your money beating on dead legal horses. They really must be hurting from all the whiplash they've been getting from all the legal losses they've been enduring.

This case ruling isn't a surprise. It is about time somebody slapped them upside the head for trying to charge more for things that can normally be bought for less and are the same or sometimes even better, the insane prices of Apple's products show that.

Apple has show that it doesn't want to do the proper leg work to be a good and competing company. Just look at all the lawsuits they've been in recently that they started and then lost. When a competitor ends up making a better product than Apple's, instead of lowering their prices so people buy their products because they are cheaper or actually work to design something better, they just try to sue the company because "they stole our ideas, they copied us. Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Sniffle...". Luckily, in those cases the judges actually had some sense not to believe Apple's whining cry-baby bullshit bullying tactics.

Oh, and their PR quote about fighting against Amazon's monopolistic practices, that is priceless and stupid on their part. I would understand if you were working to make the prices cheaper than Amazon, because that is how you fight monopolies. Monopolies become that way because they want to charge more, Amazon is working in no way to charge more than it's competitors.

So Apple claims Amazon is the bad guy for keep the prices low and thus creating a "monopoly", so they tried to organize their own "monopoly" with higher prices...Apple, why don't you join those people that petition to bring the DRM back on XBone back, they might be the kind of crazy, and anti-consumer, you're looking for.

Btw I think the person who decided not to settle, even after everyone else did, is either brilliant or is getting fired right about now.

Can someone explain to me how people are doing this? How do you make a statement like that? I mean I could hardly breath because I was laughing about that "we are trying to break amazon's monopolistic grip". Then I got sad because there is a person out there making this statement. What mental disorder do they suffer from?

As an avid Apple hater, I cackled maniacally when I read this. Just because finally someone called them on their bullshit. Then I read "trying to break the amazon's monopolistic grip" and burst out laughing. Some people are just special and it seems that Apple's lawyers are trying to raise(or is it lower?) the bar.

I love how everyone else involved settled and Apple is like "Nu-uh! We didn't do anything!" Kinda reminds me of when I got in trouble as a kid and my parents knew they had me and just let me squirm before dropping the hammer harder than if I had fessed up. I doubt it will hurt their sales too much though.

Well take that apple if they were smart enough to be competitive with Amazon they deserved to lose once more making consumers pay for their money grabbing evil antics. Throw money at this Apple, please, then maybe when you lose again you'll actually attempt to provide a decent service.

Apple is saying Amazon is trying to have or has a monopolistic hold on ANYTHING?! that's so sad its fucking pathetic, Apple has tried to monopolize every single business it has muscled into. I-tunes is a fucking travesty as is the entire I-scheme of file-types and proprietary bullshit but everybody has just lapped that shit up from its inception, just like they clamor to buy the latest in a line of homogenized poorly constructed and designed products because they are sleek or trendy. Never mind the fact that each "NEW" version of the I-whatever is the same fucking thing as the last one with minor tweaks or changes but costs double the standing or original price of its predecessor.

I wont pretend to know anything about publishing laws, just here to state two things mainly:1) I'm really not surprised to hear about companies doing things like this anymore. For some reason it's become commonplace for them to treat their consumers like sacks of cash rather than people.2) I have that same shirt except grey and in a guy's size. /highfive

Strazdas:the way apple handles ebooks shouldnt be allowed format to begin with due to amount of DRM there, its a wonder they havent done that sooner.

Never mind all the DRM in Kindle e-books? And if you think Amazon didn't make some locked-down DRM for the e-books they sell, think again. Amazon e-books, as far as I know, can not venture outside the Kindle ecosystem.

Treaos Serrare:Apple is saying Amazon is trying to have or has a monopolistic hold on ANYTHING?! that's so sad its fucking pathetic, Apple has tried to monopolize every single business it has muscled into. I-tunes is a fucking travesty as is the entire I-scheme of file-types and proprietary bullshit but everybody has just lapped that shit up from its inception, just like they clamor to buy the latest in a line of homogenized poorly constructed and designed products because they are sleek or trendy. Never mind the fact that each "NEW" version of the I-whatever is the same fucking thing as the last one with minor tweaks or changes but costs double the standing or original price of its predecessor.

Which is the same thing Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. all try to do (and in some instances, have done). It's okay for them to do it; it's just normal business. However, if Apple does it, it's an act of evil and deserving of full hatred.

I understand people hate Apple, but, in my opinion, it would be so much better if people just left it at that and stop trying to put some "logical", "rational" reason to it. Every time people try to put such reasons to their hatred of Apple, they just sound inconsistent, hypocritical, or just plain silly; for example, the whole Foxconn blow-up in which it was shown Apple was actually the ONLY company that was trying to do something, anything at all, to improve working conditions, while all other companies were silent and doing nothing, except HP, which actually stated officially that they did not like Apple trying to improve Chinese worker conditions because it could cause HP's own costs to increase (but, that little tidbit got completely ignored by all the haters).

Yeah, I agree that Apple is completely in the wrong on this one (all they needed to do was remove that one single clause in their policy), but don't think for one second that every other company out there isn't trying to do all the same sorts of things; they just have differing levels of success and availability of moments of opportunity.

Strazdas:the way apple handles ebooks shouldnt be allowed format to begin with due to amount of DRM there, its a wonder they havent done that sooner.

Never mind all the DRM in Kindle e-books? And if you think Amazon didn't make some locked-down DRM for the e-books they sell, think again. Amazon e-books, as far as I know, can not venture outside the Kindle ecosystem.

i never said that. Kindle DRM is probably the worst. And amazon is known for its DRM tactics too, though often it gives alternatives. well, more often than other services. I mean not directly, but you can sell stuff at amazing that isnt DRMed beside the amazons native book trade.

Which is the same thing Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. all try to do (and in some instances, have done). It's okay for them to do it; it's just normal business. However, if Apple does it, it's an act of evil and deserving of full hatred.

Of course its not OK, but this news are about Apple, thus we talk about Apple and not Microsoft or google.

I understand people hate Apple, but, in my opinion, it would be so much better if people just left it at that and stop trying to put some "logical", "rational" reason to it. Every time people try to put such reasons to their hatred of Apple, they just sound inconsistent, hypocritical, or just plain silly; for example, the whole Foxconn blow-up in which it was shown Apple was actually the ONLY company that was trying to do something, anything at all, to improve working conditions, while all other companies were silent and doing nothing, except HP, which actually stated officially that they did not like Apple trying to improve Chinese worker conditions because it could cause HP's own costs to increase (but, that little tidbit got completely ignored by all the haters).

How does cisistently hating on all DRM or bad work practices, or moneygrubbing, or overcharging is inconsistent because we blame apple, among others, for doing it?Oh and i hate HP with a passion and i regret every HP product i have bought for i was stupid and uninformed (funnily enough typing this from a HP laptop which is soon to fall apart from the condition it is in).

You didn't speak on DRM in general; you only spoke specifically of Apple's DRM. I'll agree with you, DRM, in general, is just nasty bad and should not exist. However, the way your statement is worded, it sounded like you are singling out Apple's DRM specifically as being criminal, as opposed to anyone else's DRM.

ADDENDUM: Oh, to specifically address your last point, I made my statement because what I often see is that people specifically target Apple for such practices and often ignore other companies guilty of the same thing.

You didn't speak on DRM in general; you only spoke specifically of Apple's DRM. I'll agree with you, DRM, in general, is just nasty bad and should not exist. However, the way your statement is worded, it sounded like you are singling out Apple's DRM specifically as being criminal, as opposed to anyone else's DRM.

ADDENDUM: Oh, to specifically address your last point, I made my statement because what I often see is that people specifically target Apple for such practices and often ignore other companies guilty of the same thing.

Thats because this is a discussion topic for a news article about Apples E-book conspiracy? Thus it makes sense to talk about Apple, dont you agree?

there are people who target apple just for being apple so yeah there are such people.